The Wind Calms the Fire - Chapter 20

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 20
Thump-thump.
Footsteps echoed deliberately toward them.
As the figure drew near, everyone fell silent as though by prior agreement.
Sedric approached and bowed his head to Lea. “Your Highness wishes to see you for a moment.”

“Now?”
“Yes.”
Lea rose from her seat and addressed the group. “I might be a while, so please go ahead and eat.”
“Yes, Director.”

Peni half-rose as if to follow, then sank back down with a sullen expression when Lea made no invitation to join her.
* * *
Sedric led Lea to the Heuksong carriage.
The door stood open.
Having entered it once before, Lea climbed the portable steps without hesitation.
She’d assumed Sedric would follow her inside.
When the door closed behind her the moment she stepped in, she felt a flutter of surprise.
‘Just the two of us?’
She met the eyes of Carrion, who stood waiting.
At his gesture, she took the seat across from him.
“There was nowhere else to speak with privacy,” he said.
Lea glanced around the carriage’s interior. “Is it soundproofed?”

“Not perfectly, but it won’t require your abilities. At this volume, our conversation won’t leak outside.”
Lea grasped the general significance of the Heuksong carriage.
The Emperor himself had granted it—a vessel that embodied the supreme commander’s authority, one that surely held all manner of classified documents.
Not a place for just anyone to enter.
The circumstances were different from before.
Then, three others had been present. Now the doors were closed, and only the two of them remained.
Everyone outside would be straining to catch wind of this.
It was unlike the man she’d come to know to court such scandal.
For anything routine, he would settle the matter quickly outside, or wait until they reached the Capital to meet in a formal setting.
‘This isn’t routine, then.’
“What is this about?” Lea asked.
She studied his face intently.
Carrion was silent for a moment, as if gathering his thoughts.
“When you said my condition was not a curse—what did you mean by that?”
Lea felt puzzled.
Was that question weighty enough to warrant all this?
She furrowed her brow. “Do you have symptoms again?”

Carrion’s eyes flickered—caught off guard.
“Since when? What kind of symptoms? No—let me ask differently. That day in the forest, when I saw you, you seemed in great distress. Have those episodes been recurring?”
Carrion exhaled softly. “Usually they’re milder than that day. They occur in cycles, like episodes.”

He’d spent his entire life concealing this weakness.
Speaking of it now felt strangely shameful.
“If they’re cyclical, how often?”
“When I was young, roughly every few days. For the past several years, once a month or so.”
‘Every few days?’
A pang of sympathy struck her—how hard that must have been.
“In the forest that day—was that episode on its normal cycle?”
“No. It was an unprecedented occurrence—nothing like it had ever happened before.”
‘So it did spiral out of control.’
Whether from the forest fire’s intense heat or from some effect her spirit had on him, there had to be a reason his spirit had overwhelmed him.
But the cause hardly mattered now.
Knowing the cause wouldn’t immediately yield a cure.
He wasn’t afflicted with an ordinary illness.
“Are you experiencing warning signs of an episode now?”
“No. Last night…….”
Carrion had only just noticed Lea drawing closer, and he shifted his body back slightly.
But it was useless. For every inch he withdrew, she advanced.
“What happened last night?”
“I experienced an episode.”
“You mean the symptoms appeared for the first time since that night the wildfire broke out?”
“Not exactly.”
“Your Highness. Tell me everything, without omission. Only then can we find a solution.”
Carrion described the symptoms that had unfolded over the past several days—how the sensations and the intensity of the pain were escalating steadily.
Lea regarded him with an expression of disbelief as she spoke.
“How can you be so stubborn?”
Carrion found himself at a loss for words—a phrase he had never heard directed at him before.
Who would dare call the Imperial Prince obstinate?
“Why endure it for days? You know I can help you.”
And if the spirit runs amok again in the meantime, then what?
Carrion studied her agitation carefully before speaking.
“Does the Zephyros Kingdom practice some peculiar religion? Is the Princess perhaps a saint willing to sacrifice herself to save everyone?”
Lea looked at him in confusion at his sudden words.
“Or are you a physician? Do you possess some noble ambition to dedicate your life to treating all your patients?”
“What are you talking about?”
Bewildered, Lea countered his incomprehensible remarks.
“I am aware that you can help me. Had you possessed a cure or a method of preparing medicine, I would have asked for your aid already. But for you to help me…….”
Carrion trailed off midsentence, yet Lea understood perfectly well what he left unsaid.
She blinked rapidly, flustered.
She clasped her own hands on the table, fidgeting with them needlessly.
She had only just become aware of the fact that they were alone together in this sealed carriage.
In her previous life, she had lived forgetting that she was a woman.
Yet that did not make her ignorant or naive about such matters.
She had simply run toward her goals as she had in that past life.
In that pursuit, if no one died or suffered injury and if it was something she could bear alone, she would accept it willingly.
And so she had only belatedly realized how she might appear to others.
Watching Lea’s face flush crimson, Carrion’s eyes wavered.
Seeing her embarrassment, his fingertips tingled with an urge he couldn’t name.
His own face grew warm in response.
“I didn’t mean—that wasn’t—I wasn’t offering to throw myself at you or anything like that…….”
“Throw yourself?”
“……It’s a temptation.”
Carrion burst out laughing.
“A most bold form of temptation, I must say.”
“That’s not what I meant!”
Lea glared at his chuckling form, then her expression softened and she found herself laughing along with him, helplessly.
When the laughter finally subsided, the carriage fell silent.
An awkward silence settled between them, yet somehow both their expressions had grown gentler.
It felt as though the wall that had separated them had thinned somewhat.
“I am neither a saint nor a physician.”
Her gaze turned toward the end of the table.
She had only just realized how greatly her actions might have misled him.
She found it too embarrassing to meet his eyes.
“I simply wanted to help you. I couldn’t simply leave someone in distress before me…….”
She stopped mid-sentence and shook her head.
That explanation too risked misunderstanding.
She lifted her gaze.
She met his eyes directly as she spoke.
“I helped because you are who you are. I wanted to help because you are your Highness.”
Because you are their son.
Because I know how profound their pain would be if they lost you.
She could not explain this to him.
Who would believe that she had already lived one life and returned?
She would be fortunate if she weren’t deemed mad.
And even if, by some miracle, he believed her, a far greater problem remained.
I can never tell him that your mother sent me to save you.
As far as Lea knew, the relationship between mother and son was extraordinarily complicated.
“Don’t speak of my story. It will only backfire.”
“Did you hate Her Majesty?”
“Hate and affection are two sides of the same coin. We simply felt nothing for each other at all.”
Nella added this as an afterthought, her voice barely audible.
“…or so I thought.”
Nella’s expression was always composed.
She spoke of herself as though recounting someone else’s tale.
Yet on this occasion, Lea thought she looked sad.
“I cannot explain the reason now. I can help you—and I want to. Won’t you trust me? We’re on the same side, after all.”
Lea could not read the expression in his eyes as they studied her.
It was as though he wore a mask, his emotions sealed away beneath.
He had always been this way since the day they met.
The reason it didn’t unsettle her was not merely his features but the way he suppressed his feelings—it mirrored Nella’s manner so closely.
That was why her heart ached a little whenever she looked at him.
Nella had once said to Lea:
“You’ve lived such a hard life, yet your face is so expressive. You must have been surrounded by good people.”
When she heard those words, tears spilled suddenly as she remembered the precious people she had lost.
Later, looking back, she realized Nella had meant that there had been no good people around her at all.
Was it the same for him—was there no one good by his side?

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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